


shake all your earth to dust

by badacts



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Claustrophobia, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Post-SPECTRE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5340065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a trap, a trap that has consequently trapped them in a massive concrete and steel sandwich.</p><p>“Why couldn’t you have just shot that bastard and had done with it, Bond?” she groans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shake all your earth to dust

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for several years, so excuse the roughness.
> 
> This is from Moneypenny's POV, so Eve/Madeleine is the focus - because who doesn't like beautiful, brilliant ladies falling in love.

Eve has definitely had this dream before.  James Bond over her, sweating and groaning in the dark?  Real life and her professionalism have stopped her from accepting what have been several thinly disguised offers of going to bed with 007, but her imagination has always been excellent.

It’s not until Bond grits out, “Moneypenny, is this really the time?” and she breathes in plaster-dust that she realises that it _isn’t a dream_.

“Oh, god, oh god,” she gasps, suddenly remembering the phone call, the bomb, Q’s anxious face, the frightening groan of the floor giving out and the fall.  Bond is hunched over her like he’s mid-press-up, arms mostly straight and his legs parked out behind the vertical.  When Eve reaches up past his shoulder, there’s what feels like a steel beam resting on the broad plane of his shoulders. The strain of Bond’s arms is literally the only thing keeping her chest from being crushed. 

“Curl up, cover your head,” he says, and it’s no wonder he’s saying it through his teeth. Eve’s sprawled as she fell, so she rolls up onto her side into a ball, sheltered under the arch of Bond’s spine. It hurts; there’s something broken in her chest, a rib or two, grinding when she moves.  As soon as she’s a smaller target Bond straightens his arms entirely, pulling his legs in one at a time so he’s kneeling. The sound of it is deafening, rattles and groans and the shrieking of warping metal, dust raining down through cracks above them.

Eve probably screams, but the sound gets lost.

It takes a while for the movement around them to settle and for Bond’s voice to actually become audible. “Easy, sweetheart. Are you alright?” He’s breathing easier now, which seems ridiculous when she considers that he’s still balancing at least the beam on his back.

“Yes,” she shivers out, which is when she realises that her hand is wrapped around his wrist. Eve has always had a good grip; there’s no way that that isn’t going to bruise.

They’d been on the top level of a ten-story building, led there by Blofeld with his ridiculous sociopathic joy in wreaking pain, thinking they were going to find the man himself and finding a bomb instead.  This isn’t Bond’s neighbourhood, every city except for home – this is hers, London, and they’d spent (wasted) minutes arguing over who was in charge right up until they’d both agreed that they needed Q on site to stop them losing a whole city block.

The quartermaster had done admirably, shutting down the main bomb which was attached to more Semtex than Eve could imagine using – even Q had gone pale at the sight of it, though he hadn’t lost that impeccable calm.  None of them had expected the back up detonator that had folded this particular building into its basement. 

It was a trap, a trap that has consequently trapped them in a massive concrete and steel sandwich.

“Why couldn’t you have just shot that bastard and had done with it, Bond?” she groans.

“Why didn’t you? I heard somewhere your aim is at least half decent,” he replies.  Laughing is agonising, making her entire chest and abdomen seize with coughs that stir what feels very much like a broken ankle.  It takes her a minute to catch her breath, long enough that she’s wondering if there’s anything down here she could use to reinflate a punctured lung if needs be. 

“Can you – Q,” Bond says once she’s back to shallow but regular breathing, and Christ, how could she have _forgotten_. “He’s about seven metres away at my ten o’clock, you need to check him if you can.  I won’t move, not sure what’ll come down if I do.”

“Fuck,” Eve snarls, wriggling her way out from under Bond despite the stunning bite of pain in her side, the grinding in her ankle, “ _fuck_. Sorry, I’ll get you out in a second.”

She has to crawl over the cracked concrete, scraping her hands and knees bloody, because there isn’t nearly enough room to straighten.  It’s not quite pitch black – there’s a tiny keychain torch lying on the ground, certainly Bond’s where he’s thrown it – but she has to feel for Q in the gloom.

She touches his shoulder first (too cool), feels delicately around the shape of his head to check its position (alright, she thinks), takes his pulse (present but thready, though that might be her hands shaking).  He’s half-buried under plasterboard that she shoves off him, feeling his stomach to check it’s not hot and distended with ruptured organs.  He groans a little at her touch, turning his face away, more like a teenager waking than a man in pain.

“Q?  Come on, boffin,” she says, brushing her fingers lightly along the very slightly stubbled line of his jaw.  There’s blood there, no enough to frighten her but enough to make it obvious he’s hit his head.  She feels the twitch of muscles as he blinks his eyes open.

“Mm…Eve?” he murmurs, “what…?”

“Secondary explosives, it pulled the building down.  Where are you hurt?”

“There was a bomb?” he asks, and she feels a chill down her spine even though his voice is already sounding stronger. “Just my head. And most of the rest of my body, feels like I got thrown around in a bag of rocks.  Are you alright?  It’s bloody dark.”

He sits up, almost knocking his head as he apparently digs around in his clothes until he makes a satisfied noise. There’s a click as he flicks on a slightly more sizeable torch, making Eve blink painfully.

“Shit, Eve,” he says, and for a moment she thinks he means their situation in general, as that seems to her a fair assessment.  Until she looks down and notices that her coat is bright red with blood even under the dust. Her fingers bash against his hands as they go for her front at the same time, wrestling the buttons open, but there’s nothing serious enough to produce that much blood. 

“James, are you bleeding?” she asks, unable to turn to look at him in the space she’s jammed into with her ribs as they are.  She can just make out Q’s face behind the torchlight, and the wound in his hairline which is no doubt going to have a lump like a goose egg in short order.  Almost certainly concussed, then.  His glasses are somehow intact and on his face though, luckily as Eve knows that he’s quite blind without them.

“Nice of you to notice,” Bond replies, his voice lower than normal but still with his typical bite of humour.

“Bond?” Q asks, peering over her shoulder at him while she appraises him.  “Christ. Moneypenny, move.” 

She lets him just about climb over her, yelping when he jolts her to his rushed apologies and then turning in the space he makes.  Moving isn’t getting any less painful, now that her adrenaline levels are dropping. Though the sight of Bond in the shifting light does give her another kick. 

He’s bleeding – badly, enough to pool underneath him, enough that Eve can see it around the slim shadows of Q’s body.  She crawls quick as she can, aware that her knowledge of first aid has to be better than Q’s. 

“You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier, you useless bastard?” she grinds out.  Q is testing the debris across Bond’s back, pulling away what he can as carefully as he can even as the low groaning shift above their heads starts again. It’s a bit of rebar, of course, and Eve can see she was stupidly lucky to avoid being impaled on it herself when she fell where it’s jutting out from their new floor.  It’s stuck low into his side, probably not puncturing any major internal organs, but there’s no way she can see of freeing him save lifting the steel bar off of him. 

“Is it all the way through?” she asks, trying to see herself.  

“Does it really matter?” Bond growls back.  His eyes are as alert as always, but he’s too pale under the coating of grit. 

“I prefer you bleeding from one wound rather than two, darling,” she says.  “Q, I hope you’ve been lifting weights.”

Q manages a snort, only a little stretched.  “Or perhaps I could use my extensive knowledge of engineering to not get all three of us killed.”

“You’re an electrical engineer,” Bond says, at the same time as Eve’s, “yes, I suppose all that knowledge of explosives is the same as being a mechanical engineer.”

“You two are a pair of regular comedians.  I think I might have covered a section on levers at secondary school which may help us.”

“By all means,” Eve says, lying down to scoot herself back in the reverse of her original position under Bond’s prone body.  It’s a little compromising, but it does put her in a good spot to press firmly against the wound without preventing her from being able to breathe.  “Just say so if you need anything.”

“Just don’t move, either of you,” Q mutters back.  She can’t see what he’s doing, but she can feel the effects, which makes their position seem terrifyingly fragile.  She focuses on slowing the blood leaking between her fingers

“Even I could have come up with that,” Bond says eventually.  How he can sound that normal, that bland, is something of a mystery to Eve.

“Maybe, but only one us here has the ability to actually do it right now,” Q replies. “Here, Moneypenny, I need you.”

He has indeed made a lever, she notes when she extracts herself, as well as built what she can only describe as a pile of debris in order to hold up the mess above them in Bond’s place. “Here, when I lift it, shove this bit of concrete into the gap as securely as you can.  Don’t muck about either, god knows how many times I can lift it before my body gives out.”

It’s no doubt more complicated than that, but Eve is as beyond thinking about it as Q is past explaining. She lifts the concrete into place, counts down, and shoves it into place when Q’s good hard shove gives them several centimetres of clearance.  Eve uses the extra space to peer into the gap at Bond’s back.

“Entrance wound only,” she informs him, “congratulations.”

“Appreciated,” he grinds back. “Give me some more room, Q.”

“Moneypenny,” Q says evenly, and she positions herself.  This time the movement of the lever sends a blast of dust and insulation straight into Eve’s face so that she nearly fumbles her chunk of concrete, but somehow her aim is good enough to secure it where it is required even so. Everything around them takes too long to settle this time, setting her belly to nearly heaving. Eve was in Kathmandu during one of their big earthquakes, and this is far too reminiscent of that save the screams of frightened people.

They have, however, given Bond a good twenty centimetres of delicately held clearance.  There’s no real way to know how deep that bit of bloody rebar is, but Eve is willing to bet that that’s enough room.  Either that or she’s willing to try it before they risk another go at lifting the ceiling of their current abode.

“There’s probably not going to be a better time.  Here, Q, lift him up from underneath,” Eve says, just about pushing him into place.

The sound Bond makes when they pull and push him free is one that Eve won’t be forgetting any time soon – abject agony is familiar to her from her time in the field, but until now it hasn’t been right in her ear from someone she considers a friend, for all his failings on that front.

He is, however, free, with a bare centimetre to spare.  Between the two of them, she and Q manage to wrestle him onto his back in an area with a little more room for them both to fit in around him.  Eve pushes down hard on the wound with that had been quite a nice scarf.

“Did you faint?” she manages to tease, though breathing is once again a struggle.  Bond opens his eyes enough to give her a long, level look – one that somehow manages to show a whisper of dry humour – before closing them again.

“Here, lie down, Moneypenny. You’re no good to me unconscious yourself,” Q says, his larger hand taking over from hers on Bond’s side. She slots herself along Bond’s uninjured side, leaching what body heat from him that she can. Even in her coat, good heavy wool, she’s starting to shiver with what she can recognise as shock. She has to convulsively swallow bile at the back of her throat at the pain of lying back in her chest and abdomen. 

“Don’t you faint,” Bond rasps in her ear.  “Q, phone?”

“Ah,” their quartermaster says, “hang on.”

Sounds are noticeably different in their current position, with the muffling cocoon of concrete and insulation around them.  That’s what she thinks for a moment when the noise of Q’s free hand groping around slows and the sounds of his breathing take over while her eyes are closed. 

“I said find your phone, not panic,” Bond says.  “Come on, Q.”

“I just – can’t quite – earpieces?” Q stutters out, “sorry, I’m trying.” 

“You’re claustrophobic,” Bond comments, not a question, somehow managing to sound both uninterested and concerned at the same time.

“ _Really_?” Eve demands, her eyes popping open.  The torch was left over quite near to Bond’s puddle of blood, pointing up at their ‘ceiling’, so she can make out Q’s exceptionally pale face with its sheen of sweat.  He looks like he’s suddenly barely holding onto control, which is in no way a familiar expression on him.

“Ever seen someone hyperventilate themselves to unconsciousness?  It’s not pretty,” he says, wiping a hand over his face and wincing as he brushes the wound on his forehead.

“Explains your hatred of planes,” Bond muses, making Eve wince, because she wasn’t actually supposed to tell Bond that in Macau.  “By the way, I think I’ve still got my earpiece.”

Q just about snatches the device out of Bond’s ear, examining it an inch from his face.  It’s not crushed, but it is a little misshapen.

“If it doesn’t work, we’re all tagged anyway.  My vitals are probably up on Q Branch’s screen right now,” Bond notes.

“Still, wouldn’t you rather know what was happening up there?” Q asks, pulling what looks like a microtool from his pocket.  “Here, press on that a bit yourself.  I think it’s slowing anyway, and you don’t look like you’re bleeding to death so that must be a good sign.”

The distraction, at least, is a good thing.  Q is right about Bond’s wound too – the bleeding has slowed significantly, which means he hadn’t hit anything bit enough to bleed badly. 

Eve can’t quite say the same as she listens to Q fiddle around with the tiny electronic, muttering to himself. She isn’t bleeding out, but the worrying feeling of her energy and grip seeping away probably means that she’s bleeding internally badly enough to be a problem, that the breathlessness is less from the pain in her chest than it is not having enough blood in her veins to oxygenate her body.

“James,” she says, on a breath, which she’s really hoping isn’t the last thing she ever gets to say when James bloody Bond is too often the last name on the lips of a dying woman. However, she doesn’t get a chance to take it back, because in that instant she blacks out.

* * *

Coming to is always worse than the sickening moment before fainting – Eve’s eyes aren’t even open, but her stomach is already climbing up her throat.  It takes her a minute to remember where she is, until she smells plaster dust and feels a hand resting on her pulse keeping track of it.

“If you really have that much of an issue with Madeleine-” Bond is saying, until Q cuts him off.

“I don’t have any problem with Madeleine,” he snaps, heavily implying the obvious fact that his problem is with Bond.

 _Is this really the time?_ Eve means to ask: what comes out instead is a groan, though that sums up her point rather well. She could have been literally dying, and these two idiots would have been busy arguing about their _feelings_.  Her noise of obvious complaint does get her a warm palm over her forehead, as well as both their voices saying her name.  Her hearing is in and out, and she knows that isn’t good. 

“Internal bleeding, probably. Best to keep her still as possible,” she hears Bond say.  There’s open concern in his tone, which is rather heart-warming.  “Have you got that thing working yet?”

“Just one…more…tweak…a-hah!” he exclaims, before stuffing the thing in his ear.  “R?”

R, of course, being the nickname of Q’s second in command, Rebecca.  Letter designations have always belonged to executives, but the joke of having a Rebecca in line after Q was apparently just too good to pass up in Q Branch.  Unsurprisingly, the techs aren’t known for their high quality punchlines.

It’s an in-ear piece, so Eve can’t hear anyone replying, but she can certainly hear the relief-filled huff that Q lets out, nearly a gasp.  He says, “Not as good as it is to hear you, let me assure you.  The company down here leaves something to be desired, though not as much as the accommodations.” 

“He’s getting picky in his old age,” Eve croaks, which apparently earns her two relieved chuffs of breath masquerading as laughter.

“Yes,” Q says, “Yes, I understand. It doesn’t sound stable down here, but my two companions probably need to be extracted as soon as possible. Well, you have my permission to tell them to hurry up.  That’s an executive order.”

“Pulling rank as well. You must want to get out of here,” Bond observes wryly.  Q mutes the earpiece for a second.

“If either of you want to speak to anyone up there, now’s your chance,” Q tells the two of them, “I think most of them are standing around on site doing very little.”

“If the choice for last conversation is between you two and my boss, I’ll pick you,” Eve manages, because as much as she likes Mallory she isn’t up to conversation right now. Bond just shakes his head, which is surprising when Eve is sure Madeleine is up there.

“Fine.  Although I’ll admit neither of you are my first choice for people to die with,” Q mutters, which Eve knows is absolutely a lie. Eve is quite pleased to be Q’s favourite person at MI6, which considering the man’s social habits outside of work – non-existent – makes her most certainly his favourite person in general, too.  Q’s relationship with Bond is somewhat more complex, as unrequited love and mutual lust always tends to be.

“Your cats don’t count,” she whispers, making Bond bark out a laugh again.

Sounding very put-upon, Q says into the earpiece, “I’ll go dark for now to save power, R…Doctor Swann?”

Bond’s arm around Eve’s shoulders tightens almost imperceptibly.  Probably because your off-again/on-again lover wanting to chat when you might be about to die is a great way to bring up painful truths, but maybe Eve is just being unkind.

“Do you want to – me? No, I…yes, I did say that, but I believe that particular instance was covered by client confidentiality rather than something that I was hoping to discuss in front of my colleagues.  Even the bleeding ones,” Q says, and then snorts, “Yes, I believe I will be. Fine.”

He removes the earpiece, reaches over Bond and puts it straight into Eve’s ear, which is both disgusting and weirdly intimate, even considering their friendship.

“Madeleine?” she asks, her voice a rasp, “Do you think I’m less likely to lie than Q?”

“About his health, certainly. I’m not sure I can say the same about yours, but I hope you’ll prove me wrong,” Madeleine’s voice sounds in her ear, smooth and calm as she always seems to be.  “I’ll be taking over from R.  Give me a rundown of your condition.  I think you’re the most likely to be honest of the three of you.” 

Ever since her hiring into MI6’s medical team, Madeleine Swann has become a formidable force of no-nonsense in dealing with both psych evaluations and the health of the most difficult agents. Eve is dearly attached to her, particularly having seen her nearly absolute mastering of 007. She isn’t sure where the relationship between the two of them stands – like most things that involve James Bond, she imagines that they’re complicated. 

Eve has other reasons for admiring Madeleine, but they mostly have to do with the way she fills out her beautiful wardrobe. 

“Q’s squirrely but functional. Probable concussion,” she rasps. “Bond got skewered by a bit of rebar, doubt it hit anything vital and he doesn’t look like he’s bleeding out. I’ve broken a rib or two, internal bleeding to the abdomen.  Nothing that can’t wait, hm, another half hour before it gets critical.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Madeleine says, and then snaps to someone else up there in the light of day, “If you wait much longer, they’ll be dead anyway.  Better a quick end than that." 

“You do have a way with words,” Eve notes wryly.

“If there’s one thing that I’ve noticed in my tenure with MI6, it’s that most of its employees prefer to hear the truth even if they aren’t used to dealing in it.  I’m not saying anything you aren’t thinking,” Madeleine replies smoothly. Eve has never spoken to her via coms before; the other woman’s voice is pleasantly intimate in her ear.

“You’ll wait up there?” Eve asks quietly, and is promptly mortified at how she sounds.  The intelligence community is notoriously incestuous, but using that yearning tone on a co-worker ostensibly involved in a serious relationship with another co-worker who is a government-sanctioned assassin is another level entirely.  Especially when said co-worker/assassin is lying with an arm pillowing your head in the bowels of a collapsed building.

Well, Eve did join MI6 to avoid a boringly simple life, after all.

“Of course,” Madeleine says, reminding Eve that this woman is one who could listen to the audio of her own father killing himself without a flinch.  Eve has no doubt that Madeleine would be in her ear right up until Eve’s own heart stopped and afterwards, probably, too.  “I’ll wait for you.  For now, though, conserve the battery life on your earpiece.  We’re doing everything we can to get to you.  I’ll be right here if you need to speak.”

“Thank you,” Eve manages, “Q, power it down for now.”

Q reaches out and does so, taking it from her to return it to his own ear, leaving them together in silence for a long moment while all three of them contemplate the fact that if MI6 had summoned Madeleine to the site themselves, they didn’t have much of hope of getting out of this one alive.  Well, that was certainly the topic on Eve’s mind – she can’t speak for the others.

“I always did like lying around waiting while other people do all the work,” Bond muses, which is so patently untrue that Q and Eve both giggle.

They actually don’t have to wait for long in the silence for the evidence of something happening to filter through to them – after a bare few minutes, Eve can feel the shuddering of what she can only guess to be heavy machinery above them.

“They are in a hurry,” she comments faintly. She’s hurting badly now, sweat breaking out all over her even though it’s frigid down here, but speaking is a good distraction.  There’s nothing to be done for it other than that, and you don’t become a field agent without a well-earned familiarity with pain.

“It’s almost as though they’re hoping to find us still alive,” Q mutters.  His fingers are fluttering at her wrist, his usually rock-steady hands shaking for all his breathing is calm now.

“You mean, they’re hoping to find _you_ still alive,” Bond informs Q, “Let’s not pretend all of us are equally indispensible here.”

“Why would you say that?” Q snaps. “If that’s meant to a joke-”

“Don’t worry, old dog, M still has a soft spot for you,” Eve interrupts before Q can properly lose his temper. “Mallory isn’t the same brand of ruthless as Mansfield.  He’ll quite happily hunt out your sorry corpse for a proper funeral, especially if it limits the possibility of you popping up again later.”

That does shut Bond up, as all mentions of the old M do, the ensuing quiet sour with bad temper from both men.

“I should hope burial would more than ‘limit the possibility’ of him reappearing,” Q muses after a long moment, always quicker to let go of his anger than Bond.  And Eve, for that matter.  “Not that the surprise reappearances aren’t one of my favourite things about you.”

“That’s not what you implied, when I came back,” Bond mutters, as though anything he might say aloud isn’t audible when the three of them are literally centimetres from each other.

“Do you mean the time where you came to take the car I’d been working on to drive off into the sunset, or when Madeleine practically dragged you back here after Blofeld escaped?” And the anger is back, of course, Q’s voice gone sharp.

“The latter.” Bond sounds like he’s gritting his teeth.  Eve hadn’t been present when Bond had made it down to Q Branch to all but announce he was back, but she has her own ins – R had said that Q was absolutely frigid, which is nothing like him.  Also, he’d apparently implied that Bond had used him – true, by all accounts – and that he’d abandoned them after some ridiculous symbolic gesture of sparing Blofeld’s life. Eve agrees with that one, too: she would have killed Blofeld if it’d been her.  She’s not the sympathetic sort, and a bullet is much, much cheaper than a trial.

She remembers that Q at least hadn’t been surprised when the man had escaped.  He’d said to M in his dry, sharp voice, “ _Did you really think he was done?  However many years of making Bond’s life hell, as well as hundreds of other people’s, and he was just going to contentedly sit in a cell in London for the rest of his life?"_  

“Do you think I had nothing better to do than give you some warm welcome home when we had a psychopathic criminal mastermind on the loose in London?  One who, may I remind you, also trapped us here under a building?” That tone isn’t all that different from the one he’d used on M.

“I came to find information that would help me catch him myself, so I would have settled for that." 

“MI6 is capable of finding criminals without you, 007.”

“But not of keeping them, apparently.” 

“That was MI5!”

“I never thought of you as the type to turn down help.”

“No, you never thought of me as the type to not help you when you wanted it.  You nearly cost me my job in Austria!”

“Your job was never in any real danger, Q.  Mallory couldn’t hope to replace you in a thousand years, and even if he did he’d spend the rest of his tenure waiting for you to bring down the British government. Besides, if you were that worried, maybe you shouldn’t have said you would do it.” 

“When have I ever refused you something you asked for?” Q asks, and the internally-targeted derision is suddenly, startling clear in his voice. 

“Perhaps you should start,” Bond replies, sounding very tired.

“Boys,” Eve interrupts wearily. “I like you both, but if the last thing I have the pleasure of hearing is the two of you bickering, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your miserable lives.”

The silence, guilty now, does give her a chance to listen to the noises above them again. She says, slightly puzzled, “Is that sounding closer to you two?”

With a roar and almighty shudder, there’s another seismic shift of the rubble that just about makes them all levitate on the spot with the force of it.  Eve can feel Bond and Q both move to cover her as a rain of debris falls on them, Q’s torso splayed across her belly and Bond’s over her head and Q’s as well like the idiotic hero he sometimes is.  She prepares herself in an instant to be crushed out of existence, the moment blinding and robbing her of her breath.

Except – that doesn’t happen.

Just as suddenly as it had began, the noise stops.  The air is unbreathable with dust again, but the torch is still there, illuminating their shelter. When Bond and a very wide-eyed Q both sit up, the three of them all look around in absolute astonishment at still being alive.

However, the shift hasn’t done caused no damage, either.  The area where Eve and Bond had originally fallen is – gone, now completely filled with twisted steel and shards of concrete. 

“ _Shit,_ ” Q snarls, and then, “No, Madeleine, we’re all alive. That just about halved the space we have, though.  Jesus Christ.”

His voice jitters at that last, not quite breaking.  Eve can sympathise – she isn’t claustrophobic, but she’s pretty sure she’s had a nightmare like this once.

Bond coughs, his hair and face even more white with dust.  He looks around and says, “Can you smell that?”

Eve can’t smell anything, and can barely concentrate on anything but her oxygen intake.  Q, apparently, doesn’t have the same problem, though – his entire body is vibrating like a scenting hound on the hunt.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes turned up, “that’s fresh air.”

* * *

 

Things progress quickly, after that. While they apparently hadn’t been killed out of good luck rather than good management, the procurement of some newly developed Q Branch tech by R had sped things up considerably. Q had muttered about sonic resonance and 3-D mapping, which apparently has allowed them to precisely locate their little save haven.

“We’re near what was the stairwell, apparently.  That’s what’s letting air in to us.  Probably why we’re still alive, for that matter – it would have held up better than other parts of the building,” Q reports to them, in between a raft of technological jargon exchanged with R.  “They’re breaking into the stairwell now, and they’ll clear through to us once they’re on our level.”

It’s not long at all until there’s a minuscule localised earthquake off to the side of them as someone very determined on the other side moves debris away to clear a space to them. The first glimpse they get is of a headlamp bobbing sickeningly through the gap being moved. After a few minutes banging – and swearing, obviously – the hole is big and apparently stable enough to admit someone fully kitted out like a mountaineer.

The familiar face under the helmet belongs to one of MI6’s specialist first responders, who Eve has interacted with at emergency evacuations in many countries but never in London. Eve can’t for the life of her remember his name – too many of their meetings have had too much blood involved in them.  He says, in his usual stupidly cheerful Scottish accent, “Hello, boys and girls! Who am I extracting first?”

“Moneypenny,” Bond and Q say in unison, which is sweet and kind of sexist, or would be if she wasn’t actually in the worst shape of the three of them.  As it is, all she can feel is a kind of vague relief under the pain.

“Let’s not piss about, then,” he replies, already moving to prep her to load onto the backboard. After a ten-second determination of whether her neck needs stabilising – over which Bond very rudely snarls that she’d been moving under her own steam earlier, and had issues more likely to kill her than a broken spine – they get her strapped up.  That’s what it feels like, anyway: she’s losing time again, her attention wavering even when she isn’t going in and out of the unnerving grey of unconsciousness.

The jolt of being lifted, along with the medic’s, “Hold tight, lads, be back in a tick,” does bring her around enough to appreciate the distance between where they’d been and the surface. The light is absolutely searing, forcing Eve to close her eyes against that and the combination of utter dizziness.

When she opens them she’s on firm ground, somehow, with a mask strapped on giving her an absolutely drugging flow of pure oxygen.  There’s also a familiar blonde head right at the edge of her vision, one that leans closer when Eve moves a little. 

“I told you I’d wait,” Madeleine says, her eyes very warm, and steady, and blue enough to obliterate the entire rest of the world.

* * *

 

Healing from major surgery is almost comically boring, even in MI6’s medical ward.

Eve has a room to herself, one of the luxuries of not being in a hospital in some obscure developing country, though at this point she’d prefer at least having people to talk to. Q had never been properly admitted, set free after having his head checked over.  As for Bond, apparently, surgery for lacerations to the liver and spleen means a longer incarceration than a mere impalement injury; he had spent a few days down the hall before being let loose, or so she’d heard, still having been sleeping most of the day then.

Now, however, she’s recovered past the point of nearly-dead and moved into the territory of not-well-enough-to-leave-but-well-enough-to-want-to. Clawing at the walls is frowned upon when done by a high-ranking MI6 staff member, which is probably the only thing stopping her at this point.  It’s been two days in the ward after a few in ICU under heavy sedation when she gets a knock at her door; not her first visitor, but the first she’s actually been fully conscious for, and not one she particularly expected either.

“Hello there,” a familiar deep voice says from the doorway, which admits James Bond and an elegant spray of white flowers in their own vase that he sets on the table next to her bed. He looks his usual polished self in a flawless navy suit, though he does lower himself into the armchair at her bedside a little slower than usual.

“Not feeling as fast to heal in your old age?” she teases him gently, more an enquiry into his condition than anything else.

“Perhaps not. Though I’d like to know what your excuse is, in that case,” he says back with a smirk.  “How on earth does M manage without you?”

“By utilising a normal secretary, rather than one who keeps a gun on her at all times,” Eve replies, and then, “Not that I was meant to tell you that.”

“Darling, if I hadn’t guessed that your job description didn’t solely include paper-shuffling and fetching hot drinks, I’m not deserving of my own job,” Bond says.  “Trust you to find the balance between being a field agent and serving on the homefront.  What’s it like, being the world’s most unlikely-looking bodyguard?”

“Good, of course. I’ve always thought it best to play to my strengths,” she answers.  “How goes the hunt?”

“No, no.  This is strictly a social call, Miss Moneypenny. No discussions of work until you’re out of medical,” Bond tuts, which is quite frankly hilarious, coming from him. She doesn’t hesitate to tell him that, getting a chuckle out of him.

“You seem more relaxed than when I last saw you,” she says, somewhat archly.

“Last time you saw me, we were buried under hundreds of tonnes of building material,” he replies with a quirk of his eyebrow.  “Not known to be relaxing, that.”

Eve rolls her eyes. “I meant that you’ve spent the last few weeks looking like you’d bolt at the least provocation, as if retirement was really that fabulous.  But I suppose if the near death experience is what’s caused you to remember you want to be here, maybe I should be worried rather than pleased.”

“I’ve been doing this a long time now, you know.  Sometimes a change is necessary,” Bond says, folding his hands in his lap in a motion he’s almost certainly picked up from Madeleine.  Eve makes a rude noise in response, getting another raised eyebrow in response.

“You’re looking for an anchor, James, but you’re looking in the wrong place with your women and your foreign countries as far from Britain as possible.  Pick one that you’re going to come back to, rather than one that drags you away from everything you care about,” Eve says, brisk and no-nonsense, which is something that _she_ learned from Madeleine. “Patriotism isn’t always enough for people like us, but it’s better than sex and love and getting a bloody tan.”

Bond sits back in the armchair, giving her a look that melds nonchalance and a faint touch of annoyance. “You know, that’s almost exactly what Madeleine said to me when she ended it between us. Back in Spain, before we returned to London." 

Well, that is a little surprising – by the way they’ve been orbiting each other since their return, she hadn’t guessed that either of them had actually put an end to their relationship. “She’s a very smart woman, obviously.”

“Yes, a trait that the two of you share.  You’d make a good match,” he says, probably deliberately to see her splutter. It’s embarrassing and still a little painful, but she doesn’t disappoint him.

“Excuse me!” she coughs, “I didn’t consider your blessing at all important, but I’m pleased I’m not going to have to murder you instead.”

“Eve Moneypenny, willing to murder someone over a woman.  Now that’s a true trait of a field agent,” Bond says, and he is actually almost smiling. 

“I hope you’re relieved to be spared that fate,” she can’t resist joking. 

“Well, if anyone could kill me, it would be you,” he muses.  There’s a light knock at the door, making Eve look up.  Q is standing in the doorway this time, looking no worse for wear other than bruises.  She has it from a reliable source that he needed stitches for the cut on his forehead, but that seems to be covered by the sweep of his hair. 

“Hello - James,” Q says, surprised, and then blushes while flicking a tiny glance to Eve. It’s cute, but it does make Eve despair a little the ability to conceal of some of her colleagues.

“And Eve,” she finishes for him, just to see the flush creep up his neck a little further. “Come in, darling.”

He also has a plant for her, one that makes her laugh a little in delight – it’s a little spiny cactus in an earthen pot, impossibly sweet and in no way subtle.  Bond frowns as Q puts it next to his offering.

“Trust you to make me feel outdone with that squat wee thing,” he says, though his voice has more than a hint of humour.  When he and Q look at each other, Eve finds herself feeling ignored entirely, which she can feel indulgent of for now. 

Bond does eventually manage to break Q’s gaze, looking back to meet Eve’s.  “I’ll leave the two of you to it.  Heal quickly, Eve, and think about what I said.”

“Murder, obviously,” she replies, just to get a startled look out of Q.  When Bond stands he unmistakeably passes his hand against the quartermaster’s back, a subtle tease that Q’s expression says he’s going to suffer for later. He does at least do them the favour of sliding the door mostly closed as Q sinks down into his vacated seat.

From this distance, she can see that Q’s face is less bruised than she’d thought, but he does have nasty black circles under his eyes from sleeplessness.  “I’d make a joke about 007 keeping you up all night, but I’m sure that’s not it.”

“The brain is a funny thing, really. I keep dreaming about being stuck under that bloody building with no contact to the outside and no company except two delightfully attractive corpses,” he says, a little low like he’s afraid one of the psych team will pop out and try to shrink him. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that isn’t how it happened…”

“Those things, they all fade,” Eve replies gently.  It’s not she hasn’t had the same before, so she knows exactly how awful that moment of waking into the dark can be, when your heart is so out of control and you can’t convince yourself that you’re alright.

“Besides, you clearly managed to get someone to comfort you,” she adds a little slyly, forcing a surprised laugh out of Q.

He looks a little shy for a moment and much younger than he is, which is funny in such an exceptionally intelligent and dangerous man.  “I hope you won’t say anything?”

“No one who matters is going to ask, as long as it doesn’t pose any problems,” she assures him. “HR is a spiny matter in MI6 even without taking the 00 program into account.  Trust me, what you and Bond do privately is no concern of M’s.”

Q blows out a long breath, partly relief.  “And you?”

“Me?”

“I know you and he had…something…”

“We had a flirtation,” _and a brief tumble,_ not that Q needs to know about that. “It was over before it started, and I’ve moved on well and truly.”

Now it’s his turn to tease, apparently.  “Yes, there was a particular yearning in your voice for Doctor Swann when you spoke to her.”

She does have the mobility to reach over and smack him lightly on the arm, so she does.  “I admire Madeleine a great deal.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve admired several parts of her in great detail,” he quips, because he’s an arse. He does dodge her slap this time with a surprising grace.

“The pair of us, honestly,” Eve huffs, allowing him to catch her hand and squeeze it gently.

“Indeed,” he answers, and then meets her eyes so intensely she finds herself pinned.  He isn’t one for direct eye contact most of the time, most probably because his gaze is so direct and so revelatory. He says, “I’m very glad you’re alright, Eve.”

“And I, you,” she offers, clasping his hand a little tighter in return until his focus breaks and transforms into a smile. 

* * *

Eve wakes to the stroke of fingers against the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist, tracing what feels like letters to her dozy brain.  She stretches a little and sighs, careful not to dislodge the hand.

“Good morning,” a familiar voice murmurs.  When Eve opens her eyes, she finds Madeleine looking back at her from where she’s leant forward in the armchair, her forearms resting on Eve’s bed.  “Well, it’s afternoon, really.”

“Good afternoon, then,” she whispers back.  The sun is falling across her bed, which is what had sent her to sleep in the first place. It’s wildly intimate, looking at Madeleine leaned against the white sheets, mostly because it sends Eve’s mind spiralling to the bed in her flat and exactly what Madeleine would look like in it.

“I heard you’ve had a few visitors today.  Well, you got to at least enjoy their being here this time, at any rate,” Madeleine teases. Her fingers dance up the soft inner of Eve’s arm, making patterns that feel almost electric on her skin.

“And yet, I’ve still been waiting for my very favourite visitor for hours,” Eve replies, because grand admissions of ardour are for the James Bonds of the world – Eve has always preferred a good flirtatious comment to make her intent clear.  “So glad you’ve finally decided to show.”

“Well, you were the one who made me wait to start with,” Madeleine says, which is apparently true in ways Eve hadn’t even realised – Madeleine has been waiting for her to catch up since well before a building fell on top of her.  “I thought it was time you returned the favour.”

Eve sinks into the kiss Madeleine offers like she’d happily drown in her.  When they part, she offers up a smile to this stunning and stupefying woman, and says, “I’d have waited longer, too.

**Author's Note:**

> You may ask, how does one write 7000 words where very little happens? Easily, apparently! Just include a lot of arguing.


End file.
